The Agricultural Core

Our text tells us that "Adequate rainfall with little annual variability, coupled with ample growing seasons, makes the region idel for growing corn and other mid-latitude agricultural crops." In addition, "The agricultural core's mix of environmental characteristics-rainfall, length of growing season, relief, and soils-allows certain kinds of farming to excel." This relates to Seattle, Washington because there is an adequate amount of rain in Seattle which helps the farming industry.
"Washington State Department of Agriculture has developed an agricultural land use geodatabases to assess the effects of agricultural production on Washington's natural resources. The geodatabase can store, query, and manipulate geographic information and spatial data used to identify agriculture land use in state. WSDA crop data is classified by several categories: 1. general crop group (berry, cereal grain, orchard, vegetable, etc.); 2. crop types (blueberry, wheat, apple, potato, etc.), and 3. irrigation method (center pivot, drip, rill, none, etc.). Traditional agriculture land use data provides only broad use definitions limited to distinctions made between row crops and pastrure."
"The future of farming is a statewide strategic plan for Washington agriculture submitted to the Legislature and the Governor in February 2009.

The future of farming identifies five broad strategies for keeping agriculture viable:

1. Make agriculture a priority. Farming needs to be a priority for the state's citizens and lawmakers.
2. Eliminating regulatory barriers. Complex local, state, and federal regulations that threaten the competitiveness need to be assessed and reformed.
3. Protect resources. The availability of productive and affordable land, water, labor and energy resources is essential.
4. Strengthen support services. Future competitiveness requires strong support services in education, transportation, research and development, processing, marketing, and more.
5. Harness emerging opportunities. Agriculture must recognize and tap into emerging opportunities.

Text Sources: Textbook, http://agr.wa.gov/
Picture Source: http://media.cleveland.com/business_impact/photo/seattle-times-farm-growthjpg-83a44fc5e90bbf69_large.jpg